(Perpignan) A music festival on Tuesday gave up organizing its 2023 edition in Perpignan, the main city in France held by the far right, after the refusal of two headliners, Indochine and Louise Attaque, to perform there.
The organizers of the Les Déferlantes festival say they are “forced to give up this location” in the city in the south of France due to the reactions of their public and the cancellation of “several scheduled artists” in a press release.
“I regret this decision, we were happy to welcome them,” reacted the mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, of the far-right National Rally (RN) party.
“The release of Indochina and Louise Attaque is unspeakable, it’s sectarian […] If we don’t agree with them, we are enemies. It is political discrimination,” criticized Mr. Aliot, a historic figure in Jean-Marie Le Pen’s movement since the 1990s and former companion of Marine Le Pen.
Mr. Aliot had failed to be elected to the presidency of the National Rally at the end of 2022, facing Jordan Bardella.
The current music festival, created in 2007 in Argelès-sur-Mer, a seaside resort near Perpignan, had recently announced that it would move its 2023 edition from the Pyrenean city of Céret to Perpignan, for logistical and security reasons.
This change of location, which had not been the subject of consultation with the artists, was decried by some of them. In 2022, the festival welcomed more than 100,000 festival-goers over 4 days.
This weekend, the Indochine group, known for its commitment against far-right ideas, had conditioned its participation on the holding of its concert “in another place”, otherwise it would cancel its visit.
Similarly, the Louise Attaque group announced on Tuesday that it was canceling its visit, saying that it did not want to “endorse either the fait accompli method or the possible recovery of the festival by the town hall”.
The festival, which should welcome international artists like Sting or Rosalia, is looking for a new place in the south-west of France, for its edition, from July 6 to 9.